N 226
XXIII. THE QUESTION 239
XXIV. A MESSAGE 247
XXV. THE ROAD TO PARADISE 252
XXVI. NIGHT 267
XXVII. MORNING 273
XXVIII. BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS 282
XXIX. THE BRIDGE OF ROCK 295
XXX. THE BACKWARD TRACK 306
XXXI. THE HUT IN THE CLEARING 315
XXXII. ATTACK 326
XXXIII. THE FALL OF THE LEAF 335
XXXIV. AN ACCIDENT 343
XXXV. THE BOAT THAT WAS NOT 349
XXXVI. THE LAST FIGHT 357
XXXVII. VALE 369

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PRISONERS OF HOPE

CHAPTER I

A SLOOP COMES IN

"She will reach the wharf in half an hour."

The speaker shaded her eyes with a great fan of carved ivory and painted
silk. They were beautiful eyes; large, brown, perfect in shape and
expression, and set in a lovely, imperious, laughing face. The divinity
to whom they belonged was clad in a gown of green dimity, flowered with
pink roses, and trimmed about the neck and half sleeves with a fall of
yellow lace. The gown was made according to the latest Paris mode, as
described in a year-old letter from the court of Charles the Second, and
its wearer gazed from under her fan towards the waters of the great bay
of Chesapeake, in his Majesty's most loyal and well beloved dominion of
Virginia.

The object of her attention was a large sloop that had left the bay and
was sailing up a wide inlet or creek that pierced the land, cork-screw
fashion, until it vanished from sight amidst innumerable green marshes.
The channel, indicated by a deeper blue in the midst of an expanse of
shoal water, was narrow, and wound like a gleaming snake in and out
among the interminable succession of marsh islets. The vessel, following
its curves, tacked continually, its great sail intensely white against
the blue of inlet, bay and sky, and the shadeless green of the marshes,
zigzagging from side to side with provoking leisureliness. The girl who
had spoken watched it eagerly, a color in her cheeks, and one little
foot in its square-toed, rosetted shoe tapping impatiently upon the
floor of the wide porch in which she stood.

Her companion, lounging upon